Sunday, June 8, 2014

On a recent walk I realized I was harboring much anger, must
resentment and much blaming.Through a
series of revelations, no doubt Holy Spirit ordained, I made a conscious
decision to release this anger and forgive those to whom I was holding it
against.My Daddy’s doctors, who
through no fault of their own, had failed to re-diagnose his returned
tumor.Basing their actions on “clear”
CT scans, they claimed that there was no “new cancer” to be found.They promised he was fine and suggested that
Christmas would be great since he had elected to stop chemo and would be
feeling so much better!Nothing could
be further than the truth!There beneath
the surface, the tumor was again growing, in the exact location from
which it had been removed, and no one found it until it was too late.

A sudden realization was that I’d been angry for months
about their inability to order the correct test, weighing all the “what ifs”
possible for treatment had they indeed found the new tumor sooner.Perhaps they could have done Cyber knife, or
a different type of chemo, more surgery, radiation.Perhaps…

All throughout our journey was a reckless intent to control
a circumstance.I cannot even begin to
describe the countless occasions in which my mom, brother and I tried to make some sort
of decision for my dad.It began last
summer when we discussed him traveling “back East” to look up old friends and
visit his daughter.We knew at 84, he
was in no condition to drive from Kansas to New Hampshire and Pennsylvania, nor
could he navigate the busy freeways, and we worried about him eating enough and
finding a hotel.Not that he was
incapable, but we wanted someone to travel with him.It was my dream to do a trip like this with
my sweet Daddy, and I prayed about a way to go with him, even suggesting it,
and even though he desired to go alone, he didn’t seem so opposed to me
going.It was so worrisome to us that he may travel
alone, that I began to pray for a way for him to realize he needed to go with
someone, a way for the issue to fix itself.Well, God answered.With two
words I never would have imagined.

PANCREATIC CANCER

He would be unable to travel on that desired trip, or ever
again for that matter.

NOT THE WAY I EXPECTED YOU TO ANSWER
THAT PRAYER LORD.

And all throughout his treatment there was a common
theme.Our attempt to grasp hold of
shifting sand, our attempt to control that which was never meant to be under
our control.We struggled to decide if
we should take him to Mayo Clinic or other cities for “better” surgeons.We agonized many a night, finally realizing
Dad wanted to be home, near his support system at church.God brought us Dr. Osborn, his famous and
very capable surgeon, who in fact had done more Whipple surgeries than most
doctors at big hospitals and had even been courted by the likes of MD Anderson,
Mayo, and Johns Hopkins, yet chose to stay at home in Wichita near family.

Later, it was the decision of whether or not he should stop
chemo.It was wrecking his body, in essence
killing him as much as the cancer itself, and yet was our only guard against
more cancer spreading.Despite our
agonizing and worry, my dad ultimately made the decision, with his oncologist
to stop the chemo.

It was our attempt to control that called the doctor’s nurse
multiple times to ask for more scans, to get the results quicker, for more
meds, for less meds, FOR SOMEONE TO HELP HIS PAIN!And although the CTs were clear, we knew deep
down that something was most definitely wrong.Pain is a tremendous blessing, in that it allows the body to signal us
to something not working properly and yet, my Daddy’s back and stomach pain was
continually ignored.I prayed it was
simply post surgical pain, scar tissue forming, or pain from lying around more
than my daddy is used to.I wrote into
boards and asked others who had survived the Whipple surgery if they too had
experienced pain.I called my Daddy’s
oncologist office and requested they draw blood work to indicate pancreatitis,
requested more CTs, asked for common post surgical digestive enzymes that they
had failed to prescribe, and even suggested he visit a chiropractor.All in an attempt to control the
uncontrollable, to prevent the inevitable.To play God.All in vain.

And the agony over deciding where he should go at the
end.Was he really ready for Hospice or
would a Skilled Nursing facility be better?We tried to count his days and determine how close he was to the end to
determine the course of care.Ultimately
we decided to try the Skilled Nursing unit, which eventually was the poorest
choice and where he was most depressed.The next decision was when and if to remove him from there and we
agonized yet again.The decision was
made when he went un-responsive there and then was taken back to the ER.We easily made the decision to put him into
Hospital Hospice.But how do we decide
whether or not to bring him home? Is that even possible with just mom and me
trying to lift him to the bathroom?Well
the decision was made by the Hospice team.Yes, he could go home, and he would get a catheter and wear adult
diapers. DONE.

Do you see a pattern here?Throughout our agonizing, God made EVERY DECISION.The more we clung to the pressure of
deciding, the less control we actually had.God answered each and every prayer in a way we never expected, in a way
we never could have orchestrated.And in
all of that reality we were assured again, that we have ZERO control.

As I walked down the sidewalk I said out loud “Lord, I forgive
the doctors!And forgive me for MY
anger, for MY unforgiveness Lord” I heard God quietly whisper to my heart “Forgive
them Kylie, for they know not what they do!” Jesus uttered those words as he died on the cross
and they had never rung more true than in this very moment. How can I not forgive others when Jesus had
forgiven me of EVERY SINGLE THING I’ve ever done wrong?I
immediately felt the biggest load lifted from my shoulders.A burden I had held for nearly six months was
eliminated in an instant.I realized
clearly, that forgiveness doesn’t come naturally or easily.It is less about freeing someone else from wrongdoing
as it is about freeing oneself from personal bondage.I was free!

And then I had another epiphany.Those doctors didn’t really need to be
forgiven.They are just human.They are not miracle workers or saviors.

THEY ARE NOT GOD.

They meant well, they did their jobs as well as they could
in that situation.They made mistakes,
they missed things, and they didn’t really listen.Yes, indeed, despite their training, despite
their “superhuman” status in our culture today, they were simply human beings
playing the guessing game that is Medicine.Had God wanted to use them to heal my Dad, He would have.Perhaps their supposed negligence was allowed
by God to further His will to take my Daddy at that time.In fact, there was nothing to forgive.In all my attempts to control, this was in
fact another situation where God’s will prevailed, and although my selfish
heart longed to spend one more Christmas with my Daddy in his sweatpants,
opening another tool and smiling at the gifts we got, eating a big turkey
dinner, and watching “A Christmas Story” for the millionth time, alas, it was
not to be.“Forgive them.For they know not what they do.”God got me, it was His will and nothing I or
the doctors did or didn’t do would override that will.And although I will spend the rest of my
life wishing it wasn’t so, that God could have given us more time as promised,
and I will ache every day until I join him in heaven, there was absolutely

NOTHING I OR ANYONE ELSE COULD DO TO SAVE MY DADDY.

And so I forgave.I
forgave when there was nothing to forgive.I realized I wasn’t angry at the doctors as much as I was angry at
God.And I told him, and He can take
it!The anger is not gone, nor is the
pain, but I can now direct that to God and not to the sinful humans that I
somehow expected to fix my Daddy!And I
felt my anger begin to dissipate.

As I near 6 months since I lost my Daddy, much healing has
occurred.I have noticed the acute
breathlessness and anxiety I previously felt at the mere thought that he was
gone has lessened.A picture more often
brings a smile than a tear.I picture my
Daddy in heaven running free, healthy, eating fresh fish and ice cream, chatting
with his brothers and sisters in Christ, and spending eternal hours in praise
ofhis beloved Jesus.

The lessons I am learning are immense.The microscope God has used to dissect my
heart has been intensely focused.

I pray daily that my will in this uncertain life would
ultimately align with God’s own will.I
have come to understand that this is not always possible.Never would I have chosen to have my vibrant,
serving, loving daddy be crippled by this horrific disease, and die a gruesome
death.That will never change nor will
my inept human brain ever be capable of grasping His purposes this side of
heaven. And yet, my lesson learned is
that our job here on earth is to relinquish our control to the One who controls
all, to submit to His will, and chose to forgive those we perceive as a threat
to our selfish plans for our life.Love
and forgiveness are a choice we’ve been allowed to make in our lives to move us
forward, to propel us one step further on our path that God ordains.

My Daddy and Me

About Me

We're a normal family swimming upstream in a downstream type of world. We love Jesus and eachother. We were blessed with a miracle biological pregnancy after years of heartache. We started the adoption process in 2009 and we're still waiting to bring our little guy home. I'm a mama, a wife, and a writer, missing my daddy and fighting the good fight...Reaping God's blessings.